How digitizing home movies helped me create new family moments from old memories

When I lost my mother last year, I had a lot of her stuff to go through. It’s a painful rite of passage, especially as an only child, combing through all of the things a parent leaves behind. Among many of her cherished possessions was a storage box filled with nearly 50 videotapes, mostly documenting my childhood and adolescence. 

I’ve talked about my grief journey before and how I escaped into nostalgia to cope with my loss, but now, going through these home videos is a whole other kind of nostalgic trip. As I revisit my past, certain questions and thoughts buzz around my head (perhaps it’s the residual anxiety talking). Instead of pushing them aside, I try to stay present and focus on what I can do now: appreciate these recorded memories and preserve them for the rest of my family.

With the help of digitizing services like Southtree and Zstories Digital, I’ve been able to save these memories and pass them on to my younger cousins, who now get a glimpse into some family history they may not have been aware of. It’s been great texting my cousin in New York footage of our time together as kids and seeing her reactions in real time. 

Southtree: Ship videos out, get a flash drive back

With Southtree, I placed an online order for their 5-item package. Several days later, I received a box (with a prepaid return shipping label) to fill with the five pieces of analog media I wanted digitized (four VHS-C tapes plus one 8mm reel). For my digital option, I chose the cloud (as opposed to a DVD or thumb drive), which ended up being a link to a private Google Drive where I could download all my videos. Unfortunately, the 8mm reel was unusable (thankfully, they offered a partial refund for the inconvenience). 

Watching videos from my family’s Orlando vacation reminds me of how obsessed I was with Jurassic Park; I can be seen wearing the movie’s logo in nearly every shot. Seeing myself meeting my paternal grandmother for the first time during a trip to Japan is now all the more meaningful. And every other holiday, birthday, and special occasion recorded on tape is a reminder of the love I was surrounded by. 

Many of these videos also include clues and Easter eggs that hinted at the future. Several family members can be seen smoking (indoors!), which was pretty prevalent throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s. Had I known what I know now, would I have changed things? Would I have told my uncle to drop the cigarettes before losing him to lung cancer in 2017? Would I have spent more time with my great-aunt? Would I have held onto a hug longer? 

Zstories Digital: Quicker and scrappier

If you want a more personal touch to your experience, Zstories Digital provides helpful progress updates and swift, affordable service. Owner John Nalbantian started the business two years ago. After his mother passed away, his father came to him with a box of VHS tapes he wanted digitized. With the equipment he already had in his video lab, John helped his grieving father and was soon inspired to do it professionally for other people.

As I continue to grieve for my own mother, I feel the need to maintain the memories of both my parents. So, I submitted ten tapes of our Japan trip, where I met my obaachan for the first time. My goal: consolidate all the footage into edited-down videos I could share on YouTube with the rest of my family, especially my cousin in Japan who is building a family of her own. Once my videos were returned to me on a USB drive, I immediately dove back into the footage, which came out surprisingly clearer than when I watched it on my ancient VCR. 

There were things I didn’t remember (like that UCLA t-shirt) and memories I could never forget (a lavish dinner at my great-uncle’s beautiful house in the town of Ishinomaki, which had been devastated in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami). There were also familiar landmarks and sites, like Kyoto’s Kinkakuji, aka Golden Pavilion, that I eventually revisited when I returned to Japan as an adult. 

'The point is to make sure we deliver quality results that are affordable,' Zstories’ Nalbantian says. 'The mission is to preserve those fond memories because we know that each tape contains something that is sentimental to someone, and they’re deteriorating with time.'

And time is one of the things I have now. I want to make sure I use it wisely as I move forward on my grief journey and reconnect with more of my loved ones. Resurrecting these memories is one of the best gifts I can give them — and myself.